On Gods of the Arena

I of course refer to Spartacus.

All these women are completely naked in the show

If you are unfamiliar with this show, imagine someone was incapable of focusing on something, unless every 120 seconds or less someone was killed, shown naked, or having sex.

That person could sit and watch this whole series start to finish.

I don't mean to imply that it's not good. The dialogue is kitsch, and some of the special effects are terrible due to low budget.

But the show is a successful piece of art, both in a experience and intent manner.

There will be something you will see that will affect you, and the show is quite talented at the characters, although shallow, blank and representative of enough common human emotion, that you can not help but identify with them.

And it is a show that is about how the Romans used and exploited sex and violence to please the people as their empire crumbled, that uses sex and violence to entertain the people while their empire crumbles.

Also, I'm pretty sure we see every penis

Also, people were not this beautiful in real life, certainly. But it does have some of the more attractive specimens of humanity I've run across.

And they are rarely clothed.


I found the current rash of "Hot Elf Chick" to draw attention to the OSR a bit complex. The discussion between Greg and Zak was also strange. Most women I've talked to about this show, don't particularly find it makes them feel uncomfortable (although they comment they fast forward through the fight scenes), even with the slavery, rape, castration, and skin shown in the show. I will see some of the women we game with tomorrow and ask their opinion about the show, and about the chainmail bikini "exploitation" in gaming. What does make women uncomfortable, I think is a pretty silly question. A better question is what makes people uncomfortable. And I pretty much think it's anything that is glorifying the base desires and actions of people that impacts the rights and freedoms of another person. i.e. it isn't the picture, or the rape, or the anything really that is offensive - it's the environment that glorifies that behavior that is.

The point of the show is that the Romans were disgusting for what they did. While the show does what the Romans did for the audience of the show.

I don't like to apply value judgments to things, hence why my reviews have no numerical score. But no one I've talked to can avoid looking away once they start watching.

Is that the definition of good entertainment?